Yes Sir:

Couple years ago I was after the coyotes and had access to some dead pits, and then a stretch of highway where it was open range and it seemed there was daily a dead cow hit on the highway.

On the dead pit, there was very little hesitancy of coyotes to eat new additions. However, every once in a while, there was a cow added that no coyote would touch. Really odd. They would eat the cow that was on top of, or under, the untouched cow, but no way were they going to eat "that one" cow. The untouched cows were a mixture of cows that had, and had not been, vaccinated/inoculated/etc. Some were calves, some were old cows. There was just no rhyme or reason to it.

With the cows hit on the highway, I would drag them to my preferred spots and most were hit immediately by the coyotes. I had no basis to determine their status as vaccinated, etc. but assumed that they had not been recently treated since they were range cows. However, I saw nearly the identical results with the range cows as with the dead pit cows. Most were consumed pretty quickly, but every once in a while there was a cow that nobody would touch . . . even the ravens would just pick the eyes out and that was it. I experimented with placements of the carcass and did learn a few things. Coyotes wanted a wide open view of their surroundings to get comfortable. Cows that were in high brush took longer for the coyotes to feel comfortable than those out on the short grass prairie. On the other hand, a cow in plain site, but near escape cover, had a much higher rate of being eaten than one in dense cover. For example, a cow in the corner of a pasture that had high brush around the pasture was pretty enticing to even the most paranoid coyote. Often I could take a cow that was untouched, drag it a mile or two away and have instant success. Other times, it was like that uneaten cow was radioactive -- nobody, nowhere would touch it. Another trick I learned was if you cut into the visceral cavity and opened the cow up AND THEN DRAGGED IT to your spot, there was a high probability that coyotes would eat it. I think some coyotes were just super spooky about eating big baits, and others were not. Opening the viscera advertised to more coyotes and they would follow the cow trail to the bait. Another oddity that I could never figure out was that cows I dragged to the north side of the highway had a higher chance of being rejected than those I dragged on the south side of the highway. I think this may have had something to do with there being more coyotes on the south side (because there was better terrain, some distant hay fields, water, etc.) but it was really a puzzler. And the end of the day, I came away convinced there are a whole bunch of things we probably don't know about their behavior that are very important to how they communicate, etc. Interesting topic.

Wannabe I was told the high fat continent in hogs is hard for most wild animals to digest and around here a coyote has to be pretty hungry to eat a pig, which doesn't happen very often. Maybe that's what u are seeing down there...???

Anywhere pigs are being eaten especially in the day time in South Texas has a VERY high density of coyotes

This also makes one think about bait piles?? What about the ones that you dont see? I dont pass up dead cows or bait piles. BUT anyone that puts up a camera and thinks he is getting ALL or most of the pics on his property and~or his neighbors ? I have been told od people that think = that constantly setting a camera on the bait site give them a complete inventory of all coyotes = their and the ones they pull in as well. I dont believe that. I also dont believe you can have 4 or 5000 acres and greatly pull aniamals of 100000 acres around you with a bait pile. It may help. But is not a cure all for not setting everything you can.

So what I’ve learned is coyotes will do whatever they want, when they want, and how they want to do it, and where they want.

But the one constant I’m reading is coyotes are caught more in the open where they can see vs deep in cover. Think that would apply everywhere. I can think of a quite a few sets I screwed up by thinking they wanted cover or a lot of cover. Even the backing was probably too much.

I’m guessing our buzzards are the same as yours too, lol. As I’ve posted before our buzzards will sometimes pass a hog, guess they pass cows too.

We have had cows that died that the buzzards didn’t touch. But an armadillo road kill? 3 dozen will fight over it and ignore traffic.

I will say I have better luck with deer than anything else on getting the canines to hit it, and they seem much less leery of whole deer than bones and scraps. They will hit bones and scraps at times, but seem much leerier.

And we wonder why they will walk past a set with a spoonful of bait down a hole and a ton of human scent there sometimes

And we wonder why they will walk past a set with a spoonful of bait down a hole and a ton of human scent there sometimes

I have no answers. I'm trapping a farm now that has two calf dead piles. Only one calf out of both piles has been touched along with some deer carcasses with a little meat on them after butchering. One deer was taken with a hip bone sticking out of the hide and infection had set in, the coyotes haven't touched that one. It just seems odd that only one calf has been eaten out of 20 or so carcasses.

Ttt